TOMBALL, TX — For one baby goat, the lifesaving care of the Texas A&M Large Animal Hospital has kept her rolling forward – and maybe even striking a few yoga poses.
Precious, the Nigerian dwarf goat, is just three weeks old. She lives with a herd of about 40 fellow miniature goats at the Brooke family farm in Tomball. Precious’s life began with a rude awakening. The night of Precious's birth last month, owners Kimberly and Dave Brooke were shocked to find the newborn had somehow been transported out of her pen and severely injured.
"When we found her and saw that she couldn’t use her legs, we immediately scooped her up and took her to the A&M Large Animal vet hospital, where they basically diagnosed her having been attacked by an owl," Kimberly said. "And she was having some neurological issues going on.”
The Brookes have taken goats to the Texas A&M Large Animal Hospital for treatment before. They left Precious in the care of Dr. Dusty Nagy, a food animal surgeon, and a specialist at the hospital. Nagy's team had Precious looked over by the neighboring Small Animal Hospital’s neurologists. Despite seeing the damage Precious had taken from the owl, Nagy said things started looking up.
"The signs that were associated with brain injury were starting to look better," Nagy recalled. "We honestly did a lot of nursing care with her, which is great with our students here... I also do acupuncture. So when we have nervous system injury, things like that; some of those diseases are responsive to acupuncture."
Nagy said Precious responded well to the acupuncture treatment. After receiving attention from both Nagy’s team and the neurologists, Precious was eventually able to return home to Tomball, where her pet-parents had a unique device waiting for her still-healing body.
"We found at the time, many companies had never made a cart for a goat," said Dave Brooke. "But we actually found a company called K9 Carts, that had made a cart for a handicapped chicken. And we thought, well that’s pretty incredible – maybe they can help us with this.”
Precious is getting special treatment with a cart to lift her back legs because she was born into a very special goat herd. The Brookes own a business known as Goat Yoga Texas. They conduct their goat yoga classes in the north Houston area, including the Brazos Valley.
The Brookes have developed a special bond with their animals, and work to socialize them well with other people. The Brooke family hope to integrate Precious into the herd once she is healed. But if Precious is unable to become a yoga goat, she will get to live out the rest of her life as a pet for the family.
Kimberly said she’s thankful for Texas A&M’s veterinarians, whom she feels provide care that the goat yoga herd couldn’t get anywhere else nearby." Definitely, A&M has played a huge role, and we couldn’t do this without them,” she commented. Goat Yoga Texas is coming to visit College Station, with a yoga class at Century Square on April `18. More information is available on the Goat Yoga Texas Facebook page.